“In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight” – Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist, Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, 1861-1941)

gSummer Solstice marks the end of the waxing year. And the rays of the sun directly strike one of the two tropical latitude lines. June 21 marks the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere, as winter begins in the southern hemisphere. On this day, the earth’s “circle of luminescence” will be from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle. The equator receives twelve hours of daylight, as there will be 24 hours of daylight at the North Pole and 24 hours of darkness at the South Pole.

gAll over the world people honor this day as an important reminder of the apex of light and to cast away evil and their problems. Northern Hemisphere inhabitants use June 21 as the day of celebration, but the splendor of light lasts from new moon to full moon.

Worshipping the Sun’s great power, all cultures celebrate in some way. Celts and Slavs dance around bonfires while Chinese marked the day honoring Li, the Goddess of Light. The celebrants of modern and ancient ceremonies tune in that life comes from the sun. It is life giving and life supporting. We’ve recently had the good fortune to have electricity, greenhouses, and shipment suppliers. How will you celebrate? We all may not get a chance to dance around the bonfire but it’s a time to bask in the light, sit in the sun, cast our worries away and awaken to our lives.

Remove the stems from the spinach and tear the leaves into bite-size pieces. Arrange them on individual salad plates or in a salad bowl. Arrange the strawberries on top. Drizzle the dressing over the strawberries and serve.

Bonnie Brae Strawberry Pie

A mixture of cooked and fresh berries helped make this pie a family favorite.

Two people represent Mother Earth and the Sun King. Create a Bonfire, dancers adorned in garlands and flowers, and young men jumping through the tall flames. A time of cleansing and renewal. The participants playing Mother Earth and the Sun King go to each participant, and speak to each person as though planting seeds of growth, imparting words of love, wisdom, thankfulness and prosperity.

Candle or Bonfire Ritual

With a candle or your bonfire – Give blessings in the 4 directions. Cast a blessing for yourself, a blessing for the harvest, a blessing for your loved ones, and a blessing for the earth. (make this blessing 3-5 sentences long for each subject) A Call to Love

Following Tara’s “under the stars” induction, you travel to a sacred stone circle in the middle of a meadow. Here, in the center of the circle, you meet a beautiful woman dressed in chiffon. As she chants, you experience an expanding vortex of power within: “Where light meets darkness … where the beginning encircles the end … where joy nullifies pain … we now choose to slip between the worlds beyond time, beyond space, and we invoke the positive powers of the Universe to assist us to manifest our desires.” Chakra balancing is followed with an inspiration ritual in which you open your heart and mind to the limitless positive potentials of life on earth. You withdraw an object from a box that relates to your purpose. Walking counter clockwise you recall a happy event from the past and transmit the vibrations into the present. A clock becomes a symbol placed in the circle to assist you make the most of your valuable time. Much more. 30 Minutes.

21st March Spring Equinox marks the mid-point of the Waxing Year, the nights and days are balanced once again; the time when Kore, (Persephone) was believed to have returned from the Underworld where she had ruled throughout the Winter. The spark of light, born at Winter Solstice has reached maturity, and from here onwards, the days progressively grow longer than the nights. Western culture proclaims this the first day of Spring.Older traditions called the Spring Equinox, Ostara; the time of the festivals of the Grecian Goddess, Eostre, and the Germanic Ostara, both fertility Goddesses of Dawn. These influenced the naming of the modern-day Easter Holiday. New greenery bursts forth from sleeping seeds in the countryside, as metaphorically, pagans also plant their own seeds for future goals, future projects and growth at this time.Decorated eggs, being symbols of fertility are symbolic of Ostara. In days gone, Europeans gave gifts of decorated eggs to new brides, in the hope that they would bear many children. Similarly, bowls filled with eggs were given to farm workers by the farmer’s wife, to ensure a rich harvest. Most all cultures see the egg as a symbol of Life; the actual home of the Soul. In Russia, decorated eggs are still given as gifts to loved ones and buried in graves to ensure rebirth.

The women gathered the eggs only from hens which were around a rooster and decorated them, allowing no one to watch them work as they transferred the goodness of the household to the designs on the eggs, thus keeping evil away. Dyes were mixed to secret family recipes and special blessings placed on each egg.

Colors of Ostara Eggs:

White:

Purity

Yellow:

Wisdom, a successful Harvest, or Spirituality

Green:

Spring, rebirth, wealth, youth, growth, happiness

Blue:

Good health, clear skies

Orange:

Power endurance, ambition, courage

Red:

Happiness, hope, passion, nobility, bravery, enthusiasm, love

Brown:

Enrichment, good harvest, happiness

Purple:

Faith, trust, power

Pink:

Success, friendship, love

Black:

Remembrance

Lore:

The custom of eating Hot Cross Buns also has pagan origins. The Saxons ate buns that were marked with a cross in honor of Eostre; Ancient Greeks consumed these types of buns in their celebrations of Artemis, Goddess of the hunt, and the Egyptians ate a similar cake in their worship of the Goddess Isis.

There are conflicting ideas as to what the cross symbol represents. One suggestion is that it is a Christianisation of horn symbols that were stamped on cakes to represent an ox, which used to be sacrificed at the time of the Spring Equinox. Another theory relates to Moon worship; the bun representing the full Moon, and the cross, its four quarters. Christianity gave new meanings to the symbolism of the buns, saying the cross represented the Crucifixion Cross. Thus, superstitions arose crediting these buns as being charms against evil, so after Good Friday, people would save one or two of them to hang in their homes as amulets. During the festival season and indeed, for a long time afterwards, fishermen would carry these Easter buns in their boats, for protection.

The Spring Equinox defines the season where Spring reaches it’s peak, with the powers of light increasing. The God of Light, (Llew), now gains victory over his twin, the God of Darkness. Llew was reborn at the Winter Solstice and is now old and strong enough to vanquish his rival twin and mate with his Mother Goddess. The great Mother Goddess, who returned to her Virgin aspect at Imbolc, welcomes the young Sun God’s attentions and conceives a child. The child will be born nine months from now, at the next Winter Solstice, when the cycle closes, only to begin anew.

The Easter Bunny is another symbol which has obvious links to fertility, rebirth, and the abundance of life which is evident in Spring.

Eostre was a playful Goddess whose reign over the earth began in Spring when the Sun King journeyed across the sky in his chariot, bringing the end of Winter. Eostre came down to Earth then, appearing as a beautiful maiden with a basket of bright colorful eggs. Eostre’s magical companion was a rabbit who accompanied her as she brought new life to dying plants and flowers by hiding the eggs in the fields.

The Full Wolf Moon (Native American) at 22* Cancer will culminate January 12, 2017 3:35AM PdT/6:35AM EdT (Farmers Almanac). The current phase of the moon is a Waxing Gibbous (98.1% illuminated), 13.5 days old and at a distance of 367648 Km (228446 Miles).

This Full Moon in Cancer is about being in harmony with your family and friends while being subtle, spirited and brave. Have you been engaging in your authentic heart-center. It’s probably more than actual love or being kindhearted, it’s a state of being. It’s an inner truth. It’s a deeper understanding of life and its joys and perils. When our outlook is one of wonder, and we offer a certain grace to ourselves and to others, we’re given plenty by the universe. We all have karma, an agenda, destiny in place with the people we choose to congregate. These people teach us what we want and what we don’t want. The reactions are placed on our path as guidelines. Think of all the people placed before you, and how you make conclusions for your personal agenda. Not only in love, but your family relationships, friends and co-workers. Before our birth we may have not known what we were getting ourselves in for. We can anticipate there was a plan. Tomorrow always gives us another hopeful day to examine and reconstruct what is yet to come.

With our higher knowledge, some decisions must be given revocation and because we can make it so as we are given chances over and over again. We have many tools and good people showing us what life is really supposed to be like. How we can wake up in the morning and tap in to the beauty instead of a bleak existence. We are the players of our real life dream. We have to believe in benevolence, love and contentment. Because if we dwell on the improprieties, we’ll become confused. We all know there are terrible things happening in the world, and God forbid they are happening to any of us. We know bad things occur and as we cultivate compassion, it will also be presented.

Goodness comes from doing the right thing in bad situations. We are not to be passive but resourceful. When we grow up and can’t always stay in that state of grace as the human condition gets confused and dragged down by karma. We can reframe wayward situations and societies rules by solutions and proactive movement. We have a sense of what our lives are supposed to look like. Where do you come back to our self, to those we love and say adieu to the ones who give us misperceptions or anguish. There is always an easy way out, and it’s to make comprehensive decisions, while living up to honor.

Journal Questions:

What are your compassionate qualities

What are your desensitized qualities

When did you start holding back your genuineness

What has held you back…

People problems

Money problems

Relationship problems

Health problems

Personal issues

Bad habits

Phobias

Career problems

Past choices

Stress

Overwhelmed

Do you have healthy

relationships

career

job

homelife

friendships

marriage

children

beauty

exercise

eating

inside maintenance

outside maintenance

person maintenance

place maintenance

thing maintenance

When you feel insecure, do you have

Compassionate acceptance of yourself

Compassionate acceptance of others

Spending too much time on others and not yourself

Spending too much time on yourself and not on others

Forward movement toward positive activities

Forward movement toward negative activities

Who Motivates You

Family

Friends

Job

Career

Money

Beauty

Health

Harmony

Things

Strangers

What brings you joy or grief and why

Family

Friends

Job

Career

Money

Beauty

Health

Harmony

Things

Strangers

Regain your health! Practice for the following month and all your life if you want:

Breathing deeply a few times a day

Drinking more water

Taking a walk

Meditating

Praying

Writing in a Journal

Creating a solution

Creating plans

— We aren’t only to listen to others, we are to engage in helping each other overcome problems. Being nice to ourselves is the first step to alleviate feeling picked on personally. Our baby self was to heal the people in our lives, and our adult self may need to find within ourselves the healing qualities again.

“Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.” ~Kurt Vonnegut

Tara will also be in New Zealand & Australia, and doing some meditations in Los Angeles. Please ask if you would like a list of the seminar or workshop schedule. sorcemoon@gmail.com

Insights – The Medicine Wheel

By Tara Sutphen

Climb to a mountain plateau where you meet a shaman within a medicine wheel. He calls in three spirits who provide you with insight and assist you to find answers to life’s most important questions. Your career is explored and you’ll answer questions such as: Am I making any karmic mistakes? What changes do I need to make in regard to my life direction?

New Year’s Resolution should be Re Soul-ution, another year to catch up to our soul goals.

Mind=Speech=Actions

We often ask ourselves, when is enough prolongation sufficient? We get trapped in our flaws. Have you tried to lose weight for years and simply stay the same weight or gain 10 lbs every holiday? Do you smoke and continue to tell yourself you will stop smoking next year? Do you refuse to exercise? Do you want to change your career but you’re stuck? Does money have you chaotic or flustered? Is stress making you muddled? Is your health failing? Why do we do this to ourselves? WHY?

We find ourselves in many earthly tests where we have to talk fast, make decisions, and sometimes act without delay. We want to make the correct choices. Many of us try and strengthen our intellect as best we can through wisdom, education, relaxation, meditation and by principles of non-hypocrisy. We work toward foundations where attributes and talents can be refined. We have had parental and teacher programming to use as guidelines, as well as societies standards and Universal Principles. We are here on earth to perpetuate.

Breathing deeply and sitting in simple introspection can work wonders on figuring out our whys. When we feel really stuck there are many meditation practices and hypnosis programming to assist overcoming predicaments. We all have to make decisions that better our lives. Whether it be to see the doctor or dentist, or just be proactive in taking better care of ourselves and making the right selection to achieve.

Try this for a few minutes:

Settle yourself in your chair and slowly now……………..take a deep breathe, breathing gently and easily, feeling calm and peaceful, relaxed and at ease……….calm and peaceful, relaxed and at ease. letting worries or sadness drift away from you…………drifting away……………….you have become unlocked and unblocked allow all worries to drift away…………

(take a moment to really feel it)

Quietly and easily………..ask your body, mind and spirit to wake up to your life. Reviving your spirit, your mind, your body. Breathing deeply and feeling relaxed. And on the count of three:

My trust center is intact, I don’t always know where I am going but I trust that I have a beautiful life. I activate my trust center, my inner knowing, I access all situations, and have the foresight to know when to take a step forward and grace my life in prosperity. I understand on a deep level what is good and right for me. I want to fulfill my purpose upon the earth. Rekindle my zest for life.

I consciously make an effort to strengthen my body. I live on the planet to enrich my life, there is no fear. I am courageous and capable. My Spirit is Strong, My Mind is Strong, My Body is Strong. Activate my strength center. Rekindle my zest for life.

(take a moment to really feel it)

You will create the life you want to live. Your expectations turn to an optimistic viewpoint. You no longer live in fear. For the journey is not always a mystery, it is how you play the game of life. Love, Success, Health, Wisdom, Accomplishment, Harmony, Security, Time, Knowledge, Attunement and Understanding is your bounty on earth.

Excerpt: “Between each of the massive columns of the Temple of Prophecy is a separate golden door — each door is carved with heavenly symbols and in the center is a word. The first door says, “Relationships.” The second door says, “Career.” The third door says, “Health.” Each door offers a glimpse of your future as the future will unfold unless actions are taken to alter destiny.”

You choose one door, open it and enter the room where you will sit before a large quartz crystal and put on a special headset to enhance psychic awareness. Once your chakras are balanced and your aura expanded, you will be directed to begin perceiving psychic impressions of your future. Later, you will receive a special psychic message in regard to the life area you’re exploring. Trust your impressions and you will see the future. 30 Minutes.

I stared at the US Dollar Bill, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here I was in Sedona, Arizona with a few participants from my Mystic Training for lunch on the first day. Last March I was in New Zealand and Jules Bonny, Yvonne Neal and I decided we would do a little money game. I’m always playing with sorcery and intention. Jules and I decided to create the movement of money, she gave me some New Zealand Money, and I wrote and prayed on a $100. US Bill and a $1.00 US bill, giving it to Jules and her shop partner Yvonne to pass around. I wrote it out as a double conundrum, TY Jewels (thank you) = Tara, Yvonne & Jules. Our lives being an illusionary dream in the earth’s magnetic field afford us to play these positive target games. Don’t we all want to create the flow of comfort, nourishment or material gain. I call it sorcing, it’s just a form of praying but I use a little more psychic umph.

My New York participant Gabrielle Revere had given me this dollar, we were at the Planet Diner. I paid for lunch with my credit card and the few who were there gave me cash to reimburse me for their meal. I asked Gabrielle where she got this dollar. She didn’t know Jules, she’d only met her a few hours before and Jules hadn’t come to lunch with us. I asked if they had exchanged money, and she said no, but she’d gotten change for a bottle of water at the front desk of her hotel. And that’s the only place she’d spent money in Sedona as she’d only gotten in the night before. None of my other participants were staying at that hotel. I asked if she’d noticed the writing on the dollar and she said she had. I said it’s my handwriting… And for this dollar to come back to me must be a huge percentage, more than a million to one.

Dec 21: The Winter Solstice is a celebration of the heart, vessel of our dreams. Through the darkest time on the planet we are to find solace once again, returning to our inner resting place. Gallantly gazing upon our life’s daily uncertainty and unknowing future. May the earth fold us in comfort away from any harshness. As the light dims we are to harmonize and begin to sincerely replenish our hearts and minds. The pagans called this holiday Yule, where the people of Europe and Scandinavia made festive. It is not considered religious. The pagans were naturalists, such as the Native Americans and other indigenous communities around the world. They followed the course of the sun, the moon and cycles of the seasons for planting food and generally planning survival strategy. As winter comes we recognize our need to rest our minds, hearts and bodies while warming at the hearth. And as we come back out of the darkest day-night of the year and begin to gain more minutes of sunlight and replenishment each day. We linger for a glimmer of light to awaken, reconnecting our spark to life, to the sun and the conviviality of our own beating heart.